Early Life and Career
Bancroft was born in Rotherhithe, London. His first appearance on the stage was in 1861 at Birmingham, and he played in the provinces with success for several years. His first London appearance was in 1865 in J. P. Wooler's A Winning Hazard at the Prince of Wales's Theatre off Tottenham Court Road. This theatre was managed by Henry Byron and Effie Marie Wilton, whom Bancroft married in December 1867. After their marriage the couple became joint managers of the theatre.
Mr and Mrs Bancroft produced and starred in all the Thomas William Robertson comedies beginning in 1865: Society (1865), Ours (1866), Caste (1867), Play (1868), School (1869) and M.P. (1870), and, after Robertson's death, in revivals of the old comedies, for which they surrounded themselves with an admirable company. Together, Robertson and the Bancrofts are considered to have instigated a new form of drama known as 'drawing-room comedy' or 'cup and saucer drama'. The Bancrofts gave Robertson an unprecedented amount of directorial control over the plays, which was a key step to institutionalizing the power that directors wield in the theatre today.
The Bancroft management at the Prince of Wales's Theatre constituted a new era in the development of the English stage and had the effect of reviving the London interest in modern drama. They were also responsible for making fashionable the 'box set', which Lucia Elizabeth Vestris had first used at the Olympic Theatre in the 1830s – this consisted of rooms on stage which were dressed with sofas, curtains, chairs, and carpets on the stage floor. They also provided their actors with salaries and wardrobes. Also, the Bancrofts redesigned their theatre to suit the increasingly upscale audience: "The cheap benches near the stage, where the rowdiest elements of the audience used to sit were replaced by comfortable padded seats, carpets were laid in the aisles, and the pit was renamed the stalls."
Other plays they premiered or produced there were W. S. Gilbert's Allow Me To Explain (1867) and his romantic comedy tribute to Robertson, Sweethearts (1874), as well as Tame Cats (1868), Lytton's Money (1872), The School for Scandal (1874), Boucicault's London Assurance (1877), and Diplomacy (1878), an adaptation of Sardou's Dora by Clement Scott and B. C. Stephenson.
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